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4.27.2012

Craigslisting & Weekend Plans

Once we decided we were going to change our patio into an outdoor living room, we knew we wanted to get a fire pit. We've actually been meaning to get one since last year, but we weren't sure where to put it so we kept delaying that decision.

I decided the ideal set up would be to have an outdoor coffee table between the sectional and chairs to serve as a landing spot for food, drinks and citronella candles. Even more ideal would be to have a coffee table that also contained a fire pit, right? Who doesn't like multitasking furniture?

Well, a simple online search showed me that these fire pit coffee tables weren't as easy to find as I thought. I didn't want the fire pits with a small ledge around them– I wanted the type where the entire pit could be covered to make a solid table surface when not lighting the fire. When you add that simple requirement, the cost goes up by a lot.

The best option I found was $300 on Amazon. We didn't really want to spend that much on a fire pit even though I know it's not an unreasonable price, so we did what all resourceful shoppers do– we checked Craigslist!

There were actually three or four available in the same price range, so it came down to which style I liked best. We had to judge by the pictures in the postings, which gave us no idea how sturdy or well made they were. I ended up picking this particular option because I loved the pedestal base. Pedestal tables have an elegant vibe, and I knew its round shape would be perfect to break up the geometric angles of our patio and existing furniture. Plus the pedestal table feels like it takes up less space and leaves more room for the feet of those sitting around the fire pit.

This table was $65 from a very nice Craigslist seller. Don't you love it when you go pick it up and the people are actually pleasant?

It's obviously been loved and used often, which is great. We'll clean her up a little bit and she'll be good as new! Sorry about these pictures... We just threw the table out there to see how it fits. Obviously no effort was taken to style this in a pretty way!

I can't wait to get the sectional and bring it all together.

Our grass needs help, though. The husband is tackling a re-sodding project this weekend to replace the huge dead zones in our backyard. He has been obsessed with our yard's shortcomings lately. Some of his friends came over and pointed out how bad the yard looked, and then it became his mission to fix it. Can you imagine us ladies going over to our friend's homes and commenting on how terrible their decor was? Nope. MEN.

Scott and I have talked about the yard's issues a lot of times, and my philosophy has been that we have little destroyer nuggets in our backyard and it's not worth the money to put in new grass. You can imagine that Scott did not agree. Needless to say, he won.

He even convinced me to sign up for Tru Green! It took a lot of effort on his part to convince me to fork over money to a company to help keep our grass healthy. In the end he sold me with the argument that our corner lot is one of the main selling points of our home and we need to protect and maintain our lawn in case we want to sell it one day. It turns out the previous owner had Tru Green because they already had our address on file when we called. When she lived there, the yard looked like this:

Either she was the grass whisperer or Tru Green really does help. We'll see!

They have a good reputation and I hope they help our yard. They came over and explained to us that the Dallas/Fort Worth area had a terrible run of weather in 2011 that negatively affected our grass. Last year was both the worst winter and the worst summer we have ever had. The grass has definitely suffered, but they are confident they can turn it around. I'll definitely keep you posted on progress!

Welcome!

Welcome to The Happy Homebodies! I'm Jordan, and I like to take advantage of my husband's awesome handyman talents to fix up our home in Texas. I dream it up, and he makes it happen. Come on in and stay a while!